4/14/14

I've talked myself down from the Mini ledge after all… for the time being at least.  In fact, I'd actually forgotten that I had been on the ledge until I just saw it up there in the last rant I'd done.  Anyhoo, here’s what went down over the weekend.  Saturday morning I had to go bleed and pee for a doctor’s appointment next week, so I was running about an hour late getting to the shop.  There I found John… um, doing something on his car.  I don’t remember what that was, but I think I approved.  While he finished up whatever it was, I got to looking at Lil' Wiggly wiring.  I routed the under hood wires but didn’t do any termination.  Then we looked at something on his car, I think, and… shit, I don’t know what all we did.  Eventually, I got back to work re-sorting the interior wiring and fingering out what was left to do in there.  I made sense of the hazard/turn signal wiring and realized I'd removed two wires from the hazard switch.  I thought about it for a bit then asked John his opinion.  See, when the hazard switch is in the “off” position, the power from the turn signal flasher routes straight through said switch and on to the turn signal switch.  When Juan switches on the hazard switch though, that route is disconnected and the hazard flasher is routed directly to the left and right turn signal wiring to the lights.  At some point in the re-wiring though, I removed the wire coming from the turn signal flasher into the hazard switch and the wire going from the hazard switch to the turn signal switch.  Why?  How the hell should I know?  I'm dumb, we’ve been over that before.  Anyhoo, once I ‘splained how it was supposed to work, I asked John if he saw any reason why it wouldn’t work with the turn signal flasher going straight to the turn signal switch.  Neither of us could think of a reason why it wouldn’t so I didn’t reinstall the wires into the harness.  I did solder the hazard flasher send wire into the hazard flasher harness, the turn signal send wire into the turn signal harness, and all of the turn signal wires into their respective output wires in the two harni.  I also soldered the brake light wires together and probably some other that I don’t remember all of a sudden.  When I had a look around, I realized I was finished with the interior wiring.  All it needs now it to be taped up and connected to the dash.  I went to tell John that bit of information but he wasn’t in the room.  I found him in the welding room working on my L-16 for the Chickenhawk.  We stripped that engine down somewhat and had a look at its condition.  Yeah, it isn’t terrible, but it needs to be honed at the very least… and the head could use a freshening.  I imagine it will get completely rebuilt before we’re done with it.  We discussed the intake situation and left it with, “We’ll see.”  When he made the comment, “You know, stripping this engine isn’t getting anyone’s wiring harness done.” I remembered why I'd sought him out in the first place.  I told him I think I am done inside the car, short of taping and routing of course, and we began talking lunch plans.  We decided on Campo Verde and went there.  Later in the evening, I began shopping intake systems on line.  I asked if I should just bite the bullet and buy the $600.00 DCOE setup from Pierce manifolds.  While on the PM site, I saw the little aluminum “Top Hat” thingy for a DGV carburetor, which I already own, and sent John the link.  I said something to the effect of, “I’ve already got one of these.  We could make a cold air intake,” something like that.  John then pointed out that we have a metric shit-ton of DGV carburetors and could probably scrounge one together… and that he has a bunch of adapters to mount a DGV on an L-series.  I mentioned that if he has any of the “tall” adapters, a nitrous injector nozzle could be installed!  He said he only has “tall” adapters.  I then went shopping for nitrous.  I'm thinking a thirty-horse shot would be fun without being too harmful to the motor… if we install forged pistons.  So, now I'm hoping the cylinders need to be bored so I have an excuse to buy said forgies.  We’ll see I guess.  One of the other things we discussed was paint.  We’re thinking that we might go with a Chickenhawk “revival” paint scheme… but in “Light Red.”  When I suggested “light red” to John last week, he said he’d be on board only if we put a big Hello Kitty decal between the taillights.  I replied, “Well, duh!”  We’re also thinking of re-trimming the seats, so some “light red” might make its way into the interior as well.  We discussed painting the engine block "light red" too, which seems likely.  Over lunch, we talked about doing the wheels in "light red" too but that might mean new Basset steelies.  We couldn’t get our heads around making the turbines work in "light red."  I don’t know, we’ll see.  And on that note, I think I'm going to call it a rant.  Have a day.